Author: Munro Stewart

Hey Derek.

Explorer versus Leader? Both.
Perceiving versus Judging? Both.
Flexible versus Structure? Both.
Dreaming versus Planning? Both.

Nature Verus Nurture

You are likely right, but I will add that the concepts of complementarity, dualism, yin and yang, and balance are convincing and worth remembering as well. I wonder if it's not exploring that makes a bad leader, but being an excessive explorer and dreamer without having the balance of also being a leader and planner. As an example, imagine if I theorized and wrote "Drinkers are bad leaders". Yes, an excessive alcoholic who is drinking too much all of the time would probably be a bad leader. But I wonder if a person could be both a drinker and a good leader if they balance their drinking with moderation. One could even postulate that being a moderate drinker, or moderate explorer, could make someone a better leader.

Explorers are bad leaders - Derek Sivers

March 16th, 2023

Hi Nemo. I couldn't stop myself from writing down some thoughts I had for you after listening to you in a few of your streams. I know you likely won't get a chance to read it since it's long, but it was just enjoyable for me to write anyway. You might want to check out the TLDR sentences someday for a few book and media picks if anything. Best wishes for a great 2023 Nemo.

Intro - On My First Time Checking Out Twitch

TLDR - I have to admit, learning about Twitch has been fascinating

I gave in and started watching Twitch for the first time around a couple weeks ago if you can believe it, partly to learn and understand what it's all about, including watching some of the chess side of it. I saw quite a bit of Anna Cramling's live tournament, as well as quite a bit of of your recent streams, starting with playing Jennifer, up until the one the day after your birthday. Even though I will likely find the resolve to stop watching Twitch, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you and learning about you and your crazy mind, and here are some thoughts I had at different times.

1. On Classic Books And Learning

TLDR - You might like "Roots" or "A Tale Of Two Cities"

From what you were saying about the types of books you like, a couple had come to mind. If I remember correctly, you were talking about enjoying books that tell stories about people living at different times in history, and that you like learning something. "Roots" was a great book which stuck with me more than most, and which I learned more about history and perspective in one book than I ever learned in school. When I started reading, I also chose to read some classic novels. The way I thought of it was, why read some new book when I could read some of the best ever. I don't remember "A Tale Of Two Cities" quite as well, and it might be a little boring for you. But it was another one I read that I thought you might possibly learn something from. Also the last movie that I thought was a really good one was "The Banshees Of Inisherin". It was clearly about how some people handled living in a simpler time and a simpler place.

2. On Birthday Songs And Music

TLDR - You might check out "Happy Birthday, Johnny" by St. Vincent

On your birthday, you were asking about good birthday songs. I was checking out some different lists of birthday songs in general while you were streaming, or ones with 23 in them. The only song I liked enough and thought was worth recommending was "Happy Birthday, Johnny" by St. Vincent. I didn't know it before relistening to it while you were streaming, but it has the following lyric. "Happy New Year Johnny. Is it 23? Happy New Year Johnny. Are there lights on the trees?" I like the song though, and even though it's not a party song it could be worth checking out. As I was listening to it I thought it even had some parallels to your career, with St. Vincent being in the public eye.

3. On Your Unique Thoughts And Interests

TLDR - It was enjoyable listening to your wacky ideas

One of the reasons I think I started or bothered writing all of this was because of some unexpected thoughts and interests you brought up which I don't hear people talk like often. After you were talking about motorcycle riding, I had asked if you would go on a motorcycle if someone you had a crush on asked you, to test your resolve. But really, the funny thing to me was just that what you had been saying about not wanting to ride on motorcycles sounded like exactly what I might say. We're very different for sure, but I suppose I just wanted to let you know it was neat hearing someone randomly bringing up things like classic books and other random stuff. Your thoughts on not always appreciating an expensive meal was another one. And also thinking about making changes to your life, which I reply to a bit in another section. One that really made me happy for you and laugh was when you pulled out the wine reference book that you were happy to get. I have really enjoyed some of those types of books, like reference books basically. I no longer have it but I had gotten Bartending For Dummies for the same reasons. I mean I certainly didn't need to write a novel of a letter just because you said a few interesting things, but what is done is done 😉

4. On Your Myers-Briggs Type And Personality

TLDR - You might be interested in learning about Myers-Briggs personality types

One thing I like to do with people I've met sometimes is try to guess their Myers-Briggs type. In real life, it actually can take a little while. I was thinking that watching you or other people on Twitch for not that long is probably easier than real life I think. At least with someone as talkative as you 😉 My first guess for you would be ENTP and my second guess would be ENTJ. If you haven't done the test before it might be something to check out if you are interested. It's probably worth doing a couple different tests, and on different days or weeks apart before thinking you might be in one of the types. Anyway, other than guessing your type I just wondered if it would be something you were interested in reading about, as I was interested in it and reading about the different types could help us understand other people. I also heard you talking about yourself one day and your aptitude for pattern recognition over really being good at strategy. Know thyself, I thought to myself. You sure seem to know yourself and try to understand yourself better than most people do, which will serve you well Nemo.

5. On Leveling Up In Life And Long Comments

TLDR - Your leveling up idea is great and my comments are too long

OK here is where I knew I was in too deep, and that Twitch chatting with popular people might not be for me. I had prepared these things below to say at one point, and was like, OK settle down buddy. Nonetheless, your thoughts on leveling up in different areas of life were interesting. Anyway, I'll leave these crazy long comments as I had written them down, as I had again decided not to bother sending any of them. Take from these what you will or even ask yourself and ponder on the second question if you wish to think about what you really want to level up the most.

- Anyone have any thoughts about Nemo's cool idea of leveling up different life skills, or do you just think that's weird?
- Does anyone ever think of one thing you could improve most in yourselves to learn from your past mistakes and become a better person?

6. On Your Birthday And Playing Alex

TLDR - Felt for you not feeling like playing chess on your birthday

I went to watch your birthday stream and watched quite a bit of it, but couldn't find a good time or bring myself to say anything, and decided to just watch that day. At one point after watching you get into the game with Alex I was going to say "Merry Nemomas! I was going to apologize for Alex making you play rated chess on your birthday, but it looked like she's not as mean as she thinks she is." Because you beat her basically. Since you didn't seem that into the day or potentially losing rating to Alex before playing her, it was really nice to see Alex gift you subscribers, and maybe at least some rating with a game or two. I honestly could not tell after a few games if Alex might have given you any games on purpose for your birthday after the first game, but if she did you have to admit she's a pretty great person and friend, especially considering how competitive she is. But it was just good to see you get into it and enjoy playing and having fun after she seemingly talked you into playing rated chess on your birthday when you maybe didn't feel like it. But man, I feel for you trying to make a show for everyone all the time and sometimes even doing things you might rather not even feel like doing, especially on your birthday. But pretty nice of Alex and "BotezLive" for the subscribers if nothing else, though I still don't understand that fully.

7. On Big Life Choices And Growing Up

TLDR - You might like the "Up" documentary film series

There is an excellent series called Up or 7 Up that you might be interested in watching if you haven't seen it. This guy interviews children at every age starting from when they were 7, and they are up to 63 now. At age 21 one of the women is sitting there smoking, being defensive, irritable, and clearly did not want to talk or be involved. She's like I hate children, they suck. Then skip to her interview at 28 and she has children and could not be more happy and welcoming. It was like night and day, and one of the best of many examples in the series of how life can change drastically with time. Believe me, I do hate bringing up a particular example like having kids, or any big life choices, as it's obviously none of my business or anyone else's. Sorry, but it just reminded me of that as it was one of the things in the series that stood out so much to me. But really it's just a good excuse to recommend the series to you, and my point is more to think about life and changes in our lives in general at different ages.

8. On The Ups And Downs Of Life And Change

TLDR - Dramatic changes to our life and perspective happen over time

You seemed to be talking a fair amount at different times about trying to make changes or improvements to yourself or your life to be happier and healthier. One thing I have noticed myself is 2 year spans where life is radically different and I couldn't have possibly ever imagined it 1 or 2 years earlier. Sometimes we might feel like things will never change or get better, and so we don't bother trying. It is truly remarkable how life evolves though, especially for someone as intelligent as yourself who thinks about such things or who can learn to proactively make changes you want to make. I do think changes take some time though, it's not quite like leveling up in a game of course 😉 Sometimes we just need to weather the storms and take a step back to learn from our mistakes, and focus on exactly what we want to or need to change the most. But you never know when your whole life, or even just your whole mindset or way of looking at something, will be completely different than they were just a year or two ago, especially if you learn to focus on something you want to learn or change over time.

Conclusion

If you made it this far and have actually read a good amount of this, what the heck are you doing? 😉 You could be making or posting some stuff for people so you can make some more moola, streaming and chatting, watching YouTube, drinking wine, reading, or even meditating to level up. See ya Nemo.

This is a reply to an insightful and heartfelt video essay by xkcdHatGuy titled "Acting as the collective's psychologist for 25 minutes"

Thanks for another thoughtful video essay xkcdHatGuy. As far as your thoughts and feelings, I'm with you in many ways, and I would like to let your keen thoughts stand on their own. I feel for you and other people who feel the same way at times. So I won't go on about the parts I agree with and how astute and relatable your perceptions are here. I just really appreciate you taking the time to put together your ideas in general, and this was a fun one.

Regarding some of your thoughts, which I felt was partly about social norms, you might want to separately ponder on and ask yourself the following couple of questions. I was thinking about them and came up with them myself while listening to you. I'd be interested to hear any thoughts or answers you or others have to these questions or my thoughts on them, which I admit are likely complete nonsense and incorrect answers to the questions I bring up below.

1. Why? Why does the average person confine themselves to social norms?

Theory - Sex and the desire for physical affection is the most basic reason for following social norms and the basis for the grip that capitalism, materialism, and the economy holds upon individuals today.

I agree with you that a large majority of people seem to mainly just be trying to learn what is accepted by society and follow those rules, as opposed to living naturally or deciding for themselves how to live. As you said in regards to walking around at night, I do also get a sense that this feeling and tendency may even be amplified since the pandemic started. I wonder if this may also be partly due to some of the social issues that have continually been more prevalent in western society recently, including the treatment of minorities and women. We may be in a period where some people, and young people in particular, are staying secluded and learning inside and online a bit more than the previous few generations, instead of going out and partying to find their own boundaries and what they and others feel is acceptable within their group and society.

You will come up with your own thoughts on the answer to the question of why most people so often simply follow social norms. But one theory I might have is that the main reason for the average person to follow social norms might be singularly, or at least largely due to a desire for sex and physical affection, having a mate or multiple sexual partners, and being desired and admired by people who they are interested in sexually. You could, of course, widen this to being accepted socially in general with the goal of not becoming an outcast, but I wonder if it could even be more basic than that in reality. It might also be worth noting that for many, at least at certain times in their lives, this sexual desire may also be linked with or superseded by their separate desire to have children.

In a similar way, which might be of interest to you, I wonder if it may be that the root of capitalism and materialism could also be based on the desire for sex and procreation. The desire for sex and affection could be so fundamentally important to most animals, including humans, that capitalism exists and endures because of, and feeds on that desire to get people to follow all of society's current social norms and be slaves in order to have sex or get a mate.

Of course this theory may be completely reductive and incorrect, and the reason for people following social norms might not be as simple as our desire for sex alone, but also include other factors such as a person's need for love, platonic affection, belonging, or many other reasons, including ones that have nothing to do with social connection. But according to Occam's Razor, sometimes the theory with the fewest parameters, or the simplest explanation, may be as likely to be correct or explain the situation as well as a more complicated one.

If sex was the main reason for following most social norms or even the basis of the socioeconomic system of capitalism itself, this may explain why monks, nuns, or people who have devoted themselves to religion quite often seem to naturally be a group that abstains from sex, more so than the idea that their celibacy is because they are purposely devoting themselves to a God or because of a rule directly from God for instance. Because they are not following the social norms of regular people, including living a materialistic life and having a job as part of the proletariat and working class, they may inherently need to resign themselves to potentially not having sex, which almost all people are unwilling to do.

2. Good? Can social norms be good for society instead of restricting or detrimental?

Theory - Social norms are good if we can continually create and altruistically help lead people towards norms which promote and enhance the wellbeing of individuals and the betterment of society and the world as a whole.

While people like you and I might enjoy thinking outside the box, and therefore are always questioning social norms, you might ask yourself if norms in general are inherently bad for most people and society as a whole. For instance, is it possible that some core values and principles that you yourself hold to be your most important are themselves really just social norms in disguise as well?

Is being kind, thoughtful, and considerate of others a universal truth and inherently right, or is it actually just a social norm? Is eating healthy and educating oneself to make yourself better ingrained in all animals or are they social norms which can be cultivated within people, and have further benefitted individual humans and progressed society for groups who have felt impelled for some reason to follow the norms of a healthy lifestyle and learning useful knowledge?

Instead of thinking that all social norms are bad because most people are followers who only have the intelligence or propensity to figure out what is currently socially acceptable, I wonder if we could instead be asking what role can social norms play in making life and society better. As you eloquently described, it does seem that the majority of people and animals follow social norms currently and possibly almost always have, which may explain the power of religion and religious leaders throughout history and still today for example.

However, knowing that most people may always tend to follow social norms, what should we do with that knowledge? It seems to me that some of your most insightful thoughts and ideas tend towards figuring out not what is "right" or "true" in the universe, but what is "better" or "best" for individuals, society, and our world.

Knowing that not everyone may have the capacity to be as freethinking or enlightened as someone with your intelligence and openness, I wonder if our goal should be to continue to fight against social norms that are egregious and harmful, in order to altruistically replace them with positive norms which make life and society better, and not worry quite as much about small things that people follow which don't seriously affect their wellness or the wellbeing of others.

August 21st, 2022